


wanna hang out forever?

by andchaos



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Engagement, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Unreliable Narrator, You're really gonna gag it's so disgustingly sweet, don't listen to a word they say they're so fucking delusional about themselves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 08:09:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15991154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andchaos/pseuds/andchaos
Summary: Mac and Dennis both want to ask each other to get married, but they're furious that the other one is trying to steal their thunder. Now they're stuck competing to out-propose each other to get them to say yes and establish themselves as the winner.





	wanna hang out forever?

**Author's Note:**

> for anonymous request: "If you're taking prompts, can you write a macden proposal" + lexi for letting me run with the [only macdennis engagement concept i'll ever, ever respect](https://glirsty.tumblr.com/post/167606146624/im-seeing-ppl-sharing-their-s13-episode-ideas-so)

The only thing wrong with the entire evening was that Mac was pretty sure it was going to amount to absolutely nothing.

He had planned it all, everything, down to their exact perfect details. He had yelled at the dry cleaner for two straight hours until the guy, who had previously held the position that there was no way he was going to get Dennis’s favorite dress shirt done in time, finished it and passed it over the counter to him (the news that they were going to have to start going to a new dry cleaner, Mac had decided to wait to give to Dennis tomorrow). He had searched out the perfect bottle of wine to crack open while they watched TV before coming down to the restaurant. He had even menaced Dee, Charlie, and Frank to stay the fuck out of their business tonight, which didn’t involve manipulation so much as a sincere threat to break their kneecaps if they bothered either of them (none of them had seemed very scared but they _had_ been easily distracted by the ensuing argument over which one of them was the strong member of the gang, a fight that Frank had assured Mac via text ten minutes into dinner was still going strong).

So it was perfect, theoretically. Except.

Except every time Mac thought about the concrete act of getting down on one knee, he got so nervous that he thought he was going to puke around the lobster he was eating. His chest burned. He was pretty sure that even if he made it to the ground, he would never get the words out.

The issue wasn’t even that he thought Dennis didn’t want to be with him forever. About that, he was pretty positive. They had spent nearly thirty years as best friends and another good year as more than that, and he was pretty secure in the knowledge that Dennis was locked in whether he wanted to be or not at this point. And he knew Dennis loved him, because he said it as regularly as people ate meals. He had said it not five minutes ago, even — candlelight and Monthly Dinner made Dennis sappier than usual.

No, the issue was that Mac wasn’t sure how Dennis felt about concepts like _marriage_. That they would be together forever had been more or less a given since they were around eighteen and had already been hauling around each other’s baggage for a few years by then already, but Dennis had never been one for institutions and rules and telling things to the government. His brief sham of a marriage to Maureen had done a good job of solidifying in his head that marriage equaled responsibility and giving someone else full access to your wallet forever, and Mac just wasn’t sure whether that was because it was to a _woman_ and thus had been missing some key aspects of the whole thing (love, for one; genuine attraction for another) or if Dennis had even connected the dots that it wasn’t marriage that he hated.

But then Dennis would do something infuriating, like smile softly at him over the candles on the table or ask if Mac wanted a bite of his coq au vin, and the urge to ask him came over Mac all over again.

“Do you have room for dessert?” Dennis was saying; Mac had the feeling Dennis had been saying something else before that, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Now he was perusing the dessert list like he didn’t have it memorized at this point, but he flicked his gaze up to Mac after a second and smiled a little before looking back down.

Mac finished his lobster, wiped his garlic-buttery hands on his napkin, and crumpled that up next to his plate on the table. He contemplated it for a second — truly, he wasn’t that hungry anymore, but dessert sounded good and anyway it would give him fifteen more minutes or so to decide if he had the nerve to do this tonight or if he maybe should wait for some other time, if at all.

“Yeah,” he said after a minute. “Do you want to split something, though? I’m not, like, _that_ hungry.”

“Absolutely not,” Dennis said, sounding bored, “you always say that and then eat the entire goddamn thing anyway before I get more than a bite. I’m getting a cheesecake and don’t you dare even think about touching it.”

His foot edged its way between Mac’s underneath the table. Mac flicked a crumb at him.

“Fuck you,” he said, just as apathetic. “Fine, then don’t beg me for any of my chocolate cake.”

“Why would I?” he said. “The chocolate here is _way_ too rich. Where in God’s name is our waiter?”

Mac had noticed that they had a tough time flagging him down every time they came here the past few years. Guigino’s was slipping.

They ordered dessert and stole bites off each other’s plates anyway, despite a couple of very near misses of a fork through somebody’s hand. The closer they got to the ends of their respective cake, the more Mac was starting to sweat on the back of his neck. Christ, wasn’t love supposed to be easy? This was going to send him into fucking cardiac arrest. He could propose to Dennis in the back of the ambulance they carted him away on.

But dessert ended, and the bill was paid, and Dennis held out Mac’s jacket so he could shrug it over his shoulders. Mac swallowed hard and before he could think about it anymore and psych himself out, he just did it — just dropped to his knee and groped around in his pocket for the ring box and was still there on the ground when Dennis finished pushing in his chair.

There was a weird moment where Dennis didn’t see him; he looked around the restaurant like he thought Mac might have sprinted from the room, which incidentally was exactly what he felt like doing. Why in God’s name had he done this in public? People were beginning to stare. Jesus Christ, he had been worrying this between his teeth for two months but he really felt like he hadn’t thought this through. This was a private moment and _not_ for public consumption, goddamn it. Well, he had started it already. No way to stop it now that he had got the ball rolling.

The second passed, Dennis looked down and saw him on the floor with the ring out, and his expression clouded over furiously.

“No,” he said, while Mac was still opening his mouth. “No way. Absolutely fucking _not_.”

Mac — well, he had known this was a distinct possibility, but his heart still dropped to the floor and then through several dark basements.

Yeah. He really shouldn’t have done this in public. He was five seconds from wiping at his cheeks in frustration — but then —

But then Dennis _also_ pulled a box out of his jacket pocket — red velvet instead of blue, which Mac felt a poor choice because why mess with tradition — and he hissed, “I was going to propose to _you_ , you goddamn asshole.”

Mac stared up at him for several seconds, mouth hung open, while his heart made a fast ascent back up through the basements and floor and struck him with all the force and grace of a bowling ball as it zoomed back into his chest. He was surprised he didn’t fall over, honestly. His vision was a little blurry.

“I — Really?” Mac said weakly. Dennis was still looking angry as ever. “So, like…Is that a yes?”

“Absolutely not,” he repeated in a dark hiss. “If anyone is proposing, it’s me to you.”

“Well, _I’m_ already on one knee.”

Dennis dropped to the ground immediately. His expression couldn’t have spelled out _So there_ any more if he actually said it aloud.

“I had a whole speech prepared,” Dennis said. “I had a whole _thing_. I wouldn’t have chosen in the middle of a goddamn busy public area, though.”

Mac chuckled weakly. “Yeah, I kind of regret that decision.”

“You’re completely mangling this,” Dennis said. “I’m going to do it. Okay, Christ, you’re kind of messing up my timetable here because a lot of this involved us being in a park, that was like, _central_ to my whole—”

“Dennis, I’ve known you for twenty-eight years,” Mac said loudly over his tirade. “And I want you to know that I’m—”

“I’m ramping up to it, Jesus Christ, have you no respect for _artistry_ ,” Dennis yelled over his yelling. “Fine, fuck the park stuff. Listen, Mac, you’re my best friend and it’s really important to me that you know that, because—”

“—since the second I saw you. Okay, actually it was in junior year when you got your face _decimated_ by Cooper Richie. You looked seriously fucked up, dude. But you just wanted to come to my house and lay on my lap while I played video games for six hours straight—”

“—I don’t think anyone else would stick around for all that stupid bullshit, I mean, you should have left the first time you found out me and Dee punch each other on a fairly regular basis, but you didn’t—”

“—even though you piss me off more than anyone in the entire goddamn world—”

“—but that doesn’t _matter_ , because even though you’re at the bar with me all the time I still wanna tell you about it when we get home—”

“—and that’s crazy to me! But I wanna do it forever, like _forever_ forever, with you—”

 “—genuinely I hate you sometimes, I mean, a lot of the time, okay, _most of the time_ , but I still want to spend forever with you and—”

It was around this point in their speeches that they were hefted off the floor by the back of the neck by two very large security personnel and they trailed off, panting hard. The maître d’ pressed their ring boxes, dropped when they were dragged off the ground, back into their hands with a dark glare.

“Gentlemen,” he said coldly, “I think it’s best that you leave.”

“I was in the middle of _proposing_ to my _boyfriend_ ,” Mac said, rounding angrily on him.

“We’re aware of that,” he said, voice forcibly calm. “The entire restaurant is now intimately aware of what feels to me something that would be best kept behind the four walls of your bedroom, but which you both felt the need to scream in the middle of our dining area. So again, please leave before our security drags you out.”

“Is this because we’re gay?” Dennis asked testily.

The maître d’ started to say something, stopped, and pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers while his other hand flicked desperately in the direction of the door. Mac and Dennis were dragged out of Guigino’s literally kicking and screaming, given a ban for the next fourteen months, and had the doors slammed in their faces.

Mac readjusted his jacket and huffed as they started walking down the street back toward their apartment. Dennis shook his sleeves out and glared down at the sidewalk. They barely spoke until they had closed the door shut to the apartment and were hanging up their jackets, and Dennis took his ring box out of the pocket, looked at it for a long moment, and then shoved it angrily in Mac’s direction.

“Take it,” he said stiffly.

Mac scrambled to get his own ring out. “You take _mine_.”

“What the hell is the matter with you,” Dennis snapped, slamming the box down on the table where they kept their key bowl. “Just say yes so we can be fucking engaged.”

“ _Me_ say yes?” Mac said in disbelief. “ _You_ say yes! I asked you first!”

“You got down on one _knee_ first,” Dennis said, sticking his index finger up at him emphatically. “Technically, neither of us actually made it to asking the question, because we got kicked out halfway through our speeches.”

They stared at each other for a second, and then at the same time, as fast as they could rush it out, they both said, “ _Willyoumarryme?_ ”

“God _damn_ it!” Dennis yelled. “Just fucking take my ring!”

“No!”

“Jesus Christ, you always have to _win_ —”

“This isn’t about winning,” Mac shouted, “this is about being in _love_ with — hold on, do you think this is about winning? Is this about _winning_ for you?”

“I’m — I don’t—” Dennis crossed his arms defensively. “Don’t give me that crap, Mac. Of course it’s about winning. And if it wasn’t about winning for you too, then you wouldn’t feel the need to out-propose me because you would just _take the fucking ring_.”

Mac opened and closed his mouth several times trying to find a retort. Then he stopped, looking furious. Dennis snorted, grabbed the box that Mac was still holding, and flicked it open to look for half a second before he threw it down next to his own box on the table.

“ _This is about being in love_ ,” he quoted mockingly back at him. “Yeah, right.”

He had to admit, it was a nice ring. A simple silver band, no weird shit inscribed on it. The one he had been intending to give Mac was laced in random patterns, but then, Mac would like that sort of thing.

“Well, the general motivation is about love,” Mac muttered. His whole face was red. “You’re such an asshole.”

“I’m _right_.”

“Don’t get smug on me. I fucking hate it when you get smug.”

Dennis laughed openly at him. Mac backed him up against the doorway to the kitchen and glared and glared, but it did little to curb Dennis’s growing hysterics.  The more he flexed his muscles and glared, the harder Dennis laughed.

“Stop it!”

“Don’t tell me to stop it,” said Dennis drily. “You’re the one being a—”

The _dick_ was cut off by Mac kissing him. It was rough and angry, and he kept Dennis pinned against the kitchen door until he got pissed off and pulled too hard on his hair. Mac let his head fall to the side, hissing in pain, as he pressed his mouth to Dennis’s neck instead.

“Don’t fucking try to push me around,” Dennis breathed out while Mac bit at his throat. “And _don’t_ tell me what to do.”

Mac’s face loomed close to his, and he growled, “Shut. The _fuck_. Up.”

He kissed him hard again, tongue pushing aggressively into Dennis’s mouth. Dennis sucked on it, harsh, and dug his nails so deep into Mac’s arms that he thought the skin would break.

Furiously, still fighting, they pulled and shoved and tugged each other back into their bedroom. They were still fighting long after they slammed the door.

 

If there was one thing Charlie was clear about, it was that he did _not_ want to be involved.

“I do _not_ want to be involved in this,” Charlie said.

“Goddamn it. Why not?” Mac sighed, slumping against the table where they were gathered around, mostly drinking but half-holding a conversation as well.

“Because you’re both being completely insane,” Charlie said reasonably. “He wants to get married, you want to get married. For some crazy reason, you’ve decided it should be to each other.”

“Oh, what? You hate marriage now?”

“I never pinned any of us as being able to swing the being-married thing,” Charlie said with a shrug. “Frank managed it for a while but even that fell through in the end.”

“Charlie, you propose to the waitress _at least_ once a year,” Mac pointed out.

This stumped him for a good few seconds, but then his expression cleared and he waved his hand around in the air, saying, “That’s different. I just don’t know why you guys always have to complicate things and drag it out to ridiculous lengths because you, like, hate being happy or something.”

“I do _not_ hate being happy, that’s unfair,” said Mac. “I just, you know. Need to win.”

Mac shrugged and drank a little more. Charlie watched him for a long moment.

“Oh,” he said at last. “It’s about winning? Not your weird feelings? Why didn’t you just say that?”

Mac perked up. “So you’ll help me beat Dennis?”

“Dude, literally nothing would make me happier.”

They clinked the necks of their beer bottles together and went back to drinking in relative silence.

 

If there was one thing Dee was clear about, it was that she _absolutely_ wanted to be involved.

“I don’t want to be involved in your weird pre-marriage bullshit,” Dee said, effectively bringing up the subject for the first time between them as she slid Dennis a beer and then cracked open her own.

They were sprawled on Dee’s couch, ostensibly watching the second Godfather movie because Dee had said she’d never seen it and Dennis felt that was the single most unacceptable thing he had heard all week, _including_ Mac refusing to take his engagement ring. In reality, though, they were eating old takeout from the back of Dee’s fridge and complaining about their friends, which was a well-worn subject that never seemed to get old no matter how often they treaded over it.

“Dee, I don’t want your help _anyway_ ,” Dennis said, beer sloshing around as he gestured emphatically, “because you are a goddamn _bitch_ and you’re terrible at romance and you would only inevitably screw the whole thing up.”

“I’m not terrible at romance! How am I terrible at romance?” Dee protested. “I’ve had tons of boyfriends.”

“Yes, exactly,” said Dennis. “Your inability to keep a man, _or_ to find a woman despite having switched teams over a year ago, suggests that you are so painfully bad at romance that even being a huge whore and sleeping with everyone you date, immediately, can’t save any of your relationships.”

Dee scowled furiously at him. She did it for a few long seconds, just to really drive it home.

“You and Mac don’t even have romance in your _vocabulary_ ,” she said. “You just yell at each other all day and then go home and bang. It’s the most wildly dysfunctional relationship I’ve ever seen, and as you just pointed out, my dating roster is like a dump truck that’s been set on fire.”

“Excuse me, I am romantic as _shit_ ,” Dennis said coldly. “Candlelit dinners every month? Extravagant anniversaries? Dee, my original proposal plan — before Mac had to go and screw that up — was to get engaged in a park at night while a band played his favorite songs in the background, and I was going to have the fountain go off at just the right moment.”

“First of all, there was absolutely no way you were going to time any of that,” said Dee. “City regulations would never allow that. Secondly, ‘extravagant anniversaries’? Stealing Frank’s card to bang in a nice hotel room for two days straight isn’t romantic, Dennis. It just makes you a slut.”

“There are — bottles of wine, and rose petals—”

“Okay, a drunk slut,” Dee plowed on over his protestations. “Anyway, you need me to help you with this. An outside perspective, a _woman’s_ perspective, is going to be critical.”

“I’d hardly classify you as a woman, you horrible overbearing flightless bird,” Dennis muttered. “Fine. What the hell do you get out of this?”

“Me?” Dee asked, looking around at him. Her attention had already strayed back to the movie, although she had no idea what was going on at this point.

“No, the other person edging their way into my engagement,” said Dennis witheringly. “Of course, you. Why are you so determined to help me?”

“Oh, because this will become an issue for me whether I do or not. So I might as well help you win.”

“Yes, but _why_ do you want me to win?”

“I don’t,” said Dee, shrugging one shoulder. “It’s more that I hate Mac and want to see him lose.”

Dennis hummed appreciatively. That was a very good reason.

“Now, catch me back up on this movie,” she said. “Why is the skinny one saying Fredo betrayed him?”

Dennis sighed.

“Dee, you goddamn bitch.”

 

Dee, Charlie, and Frank huddled in the back office while Dennis was slinging drinks and Mac was losing an argument with a large man who wanted to bring his underage girlfriend into the bar.

“We have got to put a stop to this whole entire proposal standoff _mess_ ,” said Frank. “I don’t like it. The two of them are annoying the shit out of me. I thought they were done playing gay chicken when they got together! Why are we dealing with this again?”

“This isn’t gay chicken,” said Charlie. “This is like gay…You know what, it is kind of like gay chicken.”

“Look, of course Mac and Dennis are going to be annoying as shit about it, ‘cause Mac and Dennis are annoying as shit,” Dee said. “The sooner one of them says yes, the sooner we can go back to ignoring them and everything about their lives.”

“Right.”

“Right,” said Dee. “So. Obviously Mac is going to cave first, so we just have to push him to it a little faster—”

“Hold on,” said Charlie. “Why would _Mac_ cave first? Dennis is going to cave first!”

“No way,” Frank said, scoffing. “Mac is fucking lovesick. The guy pukes up rainbows when Dennis so much as smiles at him.”

“Yeah, but Dennis has no patience,” said Charlie. “Mac is too stubborn. He’ll stay pre-engaged for thirty more years before he gives in. They’d still be having this fight when they’re seventy.”

“But they’ll have to remember this _forever_ ,” said Dee. “It’s their engagement story. Every time someone asks, whoever loses is gonna get his face rubbed in it. No way Dennis would sign up to deal with that for the rest of his life.”

“It sounds like what we’re ramping up to,” said Frank, “is a little bet situation between the three of us.”

Charlie raised an eyebrow. “You want to put a little money down on this thing?”

Dee nodded, considering it.

“It would make this whole thing a little less annoying for us…” she said thoughtfully. “Okay. How much?”

“Fifty bucks,” Frank said a little too quickly.

The others thought about this for a moment (Charlie checked his wallet) and then they looked each other, agreement clear in both their faces.

“I’ll do fifty,” said Charlie. “Fifty bucks on Mac coming out the winner.”

“My money’s going on Dennis,” said Dee. “Frank, who are you putting yours on?”

“I don’t care who wins,” said Frank. “ _I’ll_ put my money down that this whole thing doesn’t end without things getting physical.”

“Okay,” said Charlie. “Me for Mac, Dee for Dennis, Frank for them getting in a fistfight. Are we agreed?”

Charlie and Frank both wanted to spit-shake. Dee carefully removed herself from the room, hands above her head, staunchly refusing to get their body fluids anywhere near her. She was pretty sure she heard the slick sound of wet palms slapping together behind her, and she started gagging before the door was fully shut behind her.

 

The apartment had become a warzone. Nothing was safe anymore. There was one morning that began with an argument over whether cooking someone pancakes constituted a valid reason to take an engagement ring from them and ended with them needing to take a second shower that morning to get all of the syrup out of their hair.

Dennis had told Dee once that Mac would do just about anything Dennis wanted when they were — well, his exact wording was “going to town on each other” but Dee felt that that wasn’t a very romantic way to put it. Regardless, she had intimated to Dennis that he could use probably use this to his advantage in the particular fight they were currently entrenched in. Dennis had snapped at her not to think about him having sex, and she retorted that he should stop telling her, at which point the argument became more physical than verbal.

Still, she had a point. Having the same fight at top volume over dinner every night certainly wasn’t getting them anywhere. And that was how Dennis found himself wearing a pair of silk underwear that he had bought after a very confusing search online for male lingerie or the equivalent. He would have just worn the women’s lingerie he already owned but he wanted Mac to be functional enough to say yes to the ring, not drop dead from a heart attack.

He was late getting home from running errands, which was a little irritating. Dennis tried to calm down — getting into a second fight about being late for his own seduction that Dennis was using to get them out of their first fight would probably not help the situation much. He made hot chocolate while he waited instead.

His temper was rising again when he heard the front door open, and he hastened to put on a casual, flirty smile over his frustration. Mac kicked the door shut, halfway through a sentence that he appeared to have begun while still out in the hallway.

“—post office was jam packed, for some reason. I did manage to get the juice you like from the store, though.”

He hefted the bags in his arms up onto the kitchen counter, and finally he turned around. He trailed off in the beginning of his next sentence, eyes landing around the waistline of Dennis’s boxer briefs.

“Uh…”

“Hey, Mac,” he said, kicking one leg up onto the coffee table and stretching out. “You’re late.”

“Like I said, the post office line was nuts…” He looked around like he was expecting more people to jump out from behind some furniture and explain what was happening. “Why are you dressed like that? Or, I guess, _un_ dressed like that?”

Dennis laughed softly and levered himself off the couch, wandering over to him instead. Mac didn’t move, just stood there blankly while Dennis put his hands on his shoulders and chest and leaned in closer to him.

“Why? Don’t you like it?” he asked in a low voice.

“Well, of course I _like_ it, Den,” he said absently. Almost like he didn’t notice he was doing it, his hands slipped over Dennis’s waist and his thumb started to rub tiny strokes into his hipbones. Dennis grinned and tipped forward toward him. “I’m just confused. Did we miss an anniversary?”

“No,” said Dennis, leaning up to feather little kisses against his jaw. “Can’t I just buy something nice?”

“You buy nice things all the time. Sexy men’s underwear just isn’t usually your style,” he said. His fingers slipped under the bottom, stroking his thigh for a couple of seconds before he pulled the silk back and snapped it against his skin.

“I have plenty of sexy underwear,” Dennis said, nonplussed.

“I said sexy _men’s_ underwear,” Mac said. He spread his hands out over Dennis’s back, pulling him closer. Dennis rolled his eyes. Mac made it so difficult to stay on track, _honestly_.

“Does that mean you want me to take them off?” he asked in his best sultry voice. Pressed against him, he felt Mac shiver and smiled privately into his neck.

“I’m not saying that,” said Mac. He was still touching them, all up and down the sides and then hesitating, just for a second, before sliding over his ass too.

“Would you rather _you_ take them off?” Dennis murmured against his cheek.

Mac swallowed. “Uh—”

“’Cause that’s what I’d rather,” Dennis pressed on. “Mac. I think we should go to bed now.”

“Okay,” Mac agreed immediately. “Okay, yeah—”

He scrambled to get a better hold on Dennis’s hips as Dennis leaned forward and kissed him, properly on the mouth. They just kissed, wet and desperate, for a few frantic minutes. Mac pulled away first, grabbing Dennis’s hand and pulling him into their bedroom and down onto the bed.

“Ugh, I should have put away the groceries first,” Mac complained as Dennis worked him out of his t-shirt. “There’s stuff that needs to go in the refrigerator.”

Dennis gave him a weary look and then reached to undo his pants.

“Mac, I do not give one single shit about the perishables right now. I _care_ about you getting undressed.”

“There’s fresh yogurt! Deli meats are going bad as we speak!”

Dennis grunted, irritated. He kissed him again, hand slipping across his cheek. As predicted, Mac forgot about the stupid groceries — _finally_ — and he kissed him back eagerly. Dennis pressed him down into the pillows and they wrestled Mac’s pants the rest of the way off. Mac’s hands seemed drawn to the silk again, stroking over the material on his thighs and squeezing his ass even more than he usually did when they were in bed.

It was times like this — although, honestly, there weren’t a whole lot of times like this — that Dennis wished that he and Mac weren’t _quite_ so expansive in bed. It was really hard to leverage someone with sex when you didn’t have a whole lot of ground that you hadn’t already ceded. He guessed most women did ass stuff at times like this, but that wasn’t really an option for him. Blowjobs, that was basically child’s play. Handjobs were a joke. Handcuffs and choking also visited their bedroom, not often, but regularly enough that it was hardly special occasion material. Mac was a _little_ freakier than him in bed, but there wasn’t much he proposed that Dennis didn’t agree to at least give a shot, because he was never one to rule out new erotic experiences before he tried them. What if he was depriving himself of something he really liked? So he agreed to most things, at least once.

But Dennis had come to this prepared. And what he couldn’t do with new and exciting positions, he could always make up for by just paying Mac lots of attention.

Mac laid back while Dennis went down on him for nearly thirty minutes; by time he stopped, jaw aching, his tongue feeling absurdly heavy in his mouth, Mac had red creeping from his face to halfway down his chest and he was slicked in sweat all over his entire body. Dennis bit his lip, hovering his face close to Mac’s, grinning down at him.

“You good, baby boy?” he murmured.

“Yeah,” Mac panted. “I wanna touch you now.”

Dennis let him take off the boxer briefs, mind whirring, torn between pleasure and plotting. This was getting off-track again. Mac was supposed to be letting him do the touching. Christ, he couldn’t even get bribed right.

“Wait,” he said, putting his hand on Mac’s chest to still him. Mac, watching his hands run up Dennis’s thighs, paused and looked up at him.

“What?”

“I wanna — uh, do you wanna fuck me now?”

“What?”

Dennis shook his head.

“I just mean—” He cleared his throat, eyes slipping closed for a second as he worked to get back the same level of sultry he’d managed before in the living room. It was hard to pull off with Mac staring at him like he’d lost his mind. “I think you should fuck me now.”

Mac just looked at him, brows pulled together.

“Uh, okay,” he said after a moment.

Mac moved to grab the stuff from his bedside table, but Dennis grabbed his wrists. Mac turned back to him, wary.

“ _What_?” he bit out.

“First, you gotta do something.”

“Okay,” he said slowly. “What is it?”

Dennis shifted away from him, letting him go, and rifled through the drawer on his side of the bed instead. He came up with the ring box he’d put in their after the first night, sat back on the bed, and held it out, open, to Mac. Mac stared between him and the box for a really long time. Then he started laughing.

“What the shit?”

“Take it,” said Dennis.

“Are you trying to say that you won’t sleep with me until I take your engagement ring?” Mac asked.

Dennis tilted his head. He hadn’t meant it to come off that way, because the look on Mac’s face was right — that was never going to happen.

“No, of course not,” Dennis hurried out. “I’m not nearly enough of a masochist.”

Mac laughed. “So what, then? Did you think you could, what? Blow me into taking your engagement ring?”

Dennis finally let his arm drop into his lap. He scowled. “No.”

“Yes, you did!” Mac said, pointing gleefully at him. “That’s totally what you thought would happen! Well, thanks for the head, but I’m not taking the ring.”

“Mac! God motherfucking damn it!” He snapped the ring box shut and threw it angrily down onto the table; it skidded off and landed on the floor, spinning away into a corner. “Just fucking say yes so we can be fiancés already!”

“Absolutely not,” said Mac, still grinning. He leaned closer and wound his arm around Dennis’s waist, ignoring the hands that shoved at him and reeling him in closer anyway.

Dennis fell against his chest with an angry grunt.

“Can we stop fighting now and go back to banging?” Mac asked.

“No. I’m mad at you.”

He already had a hand between Mac’s legs, though, stroking his cock to get back the ground he’d lost while they were arguing.

They had angry sex again that night. That seemed to be happening a lot lately. The fact that it was some of the best sex they’d ever had did not at all quell Dennis’s temper on the issue.

 

The great thing, he found, was that it could absolutely work the other way around. Mac probably wouldn’t have thought about trying to seduce Dennis into taking the ring if Dennis hadn’t done it first. But that didn’t mean that Mac wasn’t determined to do it _better_.

Mac was realistic. He did not have the best body. But Dennis seemed to like it — Dennis was always down to sleep with him, anyway, which felt like it meant the same thing. Sure, he wasn’t big and massive and scary anymore, and that was a couple points off, but he could work with what he had.

Dennis didn’t like to be seduced sexually. He thought he did, but really it was more about being seduced _romantically_. And _then_ the sex part, but that would come after he was already hooked so it wasn’t as important.

He enlisted Charlie’s help to get Dennis out of the house. Charlie successfully enticed him with something involving cats and pissing off Frank and watching Fight Club (Dennis’s trifecta of favorite activities), and Mac had the apartment to himself all afternoon.

He spent most of that time cooking. The kitchen ended up a complete mess, but by six he had managed to make steak rubbed down with chili and lime and heaped with an assortment of roasted vegetables. The apartment had been cleaned — it was generally always clean, but he had spent the better part of two hours scrubbing it down top to bottom until the floors were gleaming. He had set out candles, found a good station to set the radio, and bought four bottles of good, expensive wine (that they would be satisfied with any less was laughable) and poured them each a glass. He had changed into one of his formal shirts, a blue one Dennis had said brought out his eyes one time. He was going to love it.

He unlocked his phone and texted Charlie to kick Dennis out now. The string of angry texts that Mac received from Dennis about five minutes later, insulting everything from Charlie’s voice to his personality to the very core of his character, suggested that Dennis had gotten thrown out before Fight Club ended.

Mac abandoned cleaning the kitchen when he heard the front door open. Dennis was already yelling about hating Charlie when he came in, but he trailed off when he saw the place. Mac hastily pressed a kiss to his cheek and ushered him inside.

“Hi. I made dinner,” he said, kicking the door closed and guiding him over to the table with a hand on the small of his back. “You didn’t eat at Charlie’s, did you?”

“No,” Dennis said, sounding distant as he looked over the food and the table and the apartment. Absently, he pushed the sleeves of his sweater a little further up his arms. “This looks really good.”

“Thanks.” He kissed him on the cheek again, pulled out his chair for him, and then went around to his side of the table. “Do you want anything else?”

“No, I think I’m good.” He shook out his napkin and put it down on his lap. Mac preferred to crumple his in his fist while he ate with his other hand. “This wine is really delicious.”

“You don’t wanna know how much it cost,” Mac muttered. “Anyway, how was your day?”

They chatted idly while they ate. Mac’s steak was a little too cooked, but Dennis seemed to enjoy his; he smiled at Mac over the table every now and again, looking soft and content. When they were through eating, Dennis leaned back in his chair, looking steadily over at him.

“You know, I’m not an idiot,” he said conversationally.

Mac, who had been turning over whether he should do this before or after banging, startled.

“What?”

“I know what you’re trying to do here, man,” he laughed. “I’ll admit, the candles were a nice touch. But it was obvious what you were angling for since the second I walked in the door.”

“Excuse you, I’m subtle as hell,” Mac said, slamming his fist down on the table and making all their silverware rattle.

“No, you’re not,” said Dennis, pushing his chair back and collecting their plates in one hand. He brushed his fingers through Mac’s carefully gelled hair as he passed him by on the way to the kitchen. “You know, if you’re going to a seduce a man into marrying you, it’s best not to do it less than a week after he tried to do the exact same thing to you.”

Mac scowled and crossed his arms. “You don’t know anything.”

“Oh, but I do,” said Dennis, reentering the room. He pulled at one of Mac’s arms until he relented, and let Dennis pull him up to his feet. Dennis pressed a soft kiss to the corner of his still-pouting mouth. “Well, do I still get the rest of my evening or not?”

That finally surprised Mac into dropping his guard and turning to look at him. Dennis grinned.

“What?”

“Well, I just assumed that after dinner, you were going to try and fuck some sense into me. See if that and the steak combined wouldn’t change my mind,” Dennis explained. “It won’t, by the way. But I’m willing to let you give it a shot.”

“Maybe I don’t feel like sleeping with anyone but my fiancé,” Mac said, arching a brow at him.

Dennis stepped away from him, already backing up toward their room even though he hadn’t won anything yet.

“It’s not too late for that,” said Dennis. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “My ring is right in my bedside drawer. Should I go grab it?”

“You are such a pain in my ass.”

Dennis rolled his eyes, spreading his hands. “And yet you’re willing to fight me over who gets to marry who the hardest.”

“And you’re a piece of shit bastard, too,” Mac commented, but he finally relented and followed Dennis back into their room. Dennis grinned as he reached to pull him down to his mouth.

 

The park thing was romantic as hell and Dennis didn’t plan on giving it up so easily. He just needed to tweak the schematics a little, make things work with how the situation had changed since he’d initially hatched the idea a few months ago.

The band he could still get. The band was just a few college kids who needed some spare change and were only half-decent, so they eagerly took the hundred bucks Dennis offered them in exchange for learning a couple of old rock songs.

Ultimately doing it at night got scrapped too, because their shifts misaligned just right so that one or both of them was always scheduled at inopportune times. Instead they were wandering down the lane at around two-thirty in the afternoon on a Sunday, and Mac was eating a cheesesteak from a cart on the corner and Dennis was drinking an iced coffee and complaining about hipsters. Normal Sunday afternoon stuff.

Dennis finished reaming out the guy who’d sold him his Starbucks and checked his watch. Almost go time.

“They’re worse than new poor,” Mac agreed sagely. “Because they dress the same and live the same but don’t have to do that. At all. And then they complain about how they’re living like they couldn’t just call up their parents and get them to fork over the dough for a better apartment.”

“See? You get me.”

“You’re just objectively _right_ , man,” said Mac. He paused, tilting his head. Dennis smiled. “Do you hear music?”

“Fuck people who play music in public,” Dennis said. “Goddamn assholes think I want a free concert ticket like they’re God’s gift to the guitar, which they never are. If they were good they would have been discovered.”

“Yeah, but is that Born to Be Wild?” Mac said excitedly. “Dude, let’s go.”

God, Dennis was good.

He tossed the empty coffee and followed Mac across the park over to where the college kids were set up, strumming away. One of them nodded at Dennis when they saw him. They weren’t very good but at least the song was recognizable, and Mac looked happy, nodding along to the beat and occasionally grinning over at Dennis.

They stayed there for a few songs while Mac complimented their set list, and then the lead singer leaned in to the mic, clearing his throat.

“Uh, thanks for coming out, guys,” he said to the approximately ten people gathered or who just happened to be sitting nearby. “But um, for this next one, we’ve got a guy who specially requested to come up and sing something for his special someone. So everyone please welcome up, uh, Donnie.”

There was some idle clapping. Mac shot Dennis a confused look as he extricated himself from underneath his arm and crossed the grass to the kid.

“It’s Dennis,” he said, irritated, as he pulled the mic away from him. The kid muttered an apology as he backed away, stepping off the side. Mac was just staring at him, mouth open. “Anyway. Uh, hey guys. I’m Dennis. I’m gonna go ahead and sing some Bon Jovi for you. Well actually, it’s for my boyfriend. Mac.”

He cleared his throat. Mac was red-faced but looking incredibly smug as the band started up behind him and he broke out into the first notes of I’ll Be There For You. The fountain never went off because the city officials had just stared at him like he was a lunatic when he requested control of the power switch, and the fountain stood in mockery in the distance. Mac watched him, wide-eyed and smiling slightly, the entire time.

When it was done, and the music was fading out, the lead singer boy came back over and tried to take the mic, but Dennis mumbled for him to hold on and hastily faced the mini-crowd again.

“Listen, Mac,” he said. The smile slipped off Mac’s face and he just looked at him, blank and shocked and a little awed. Dennis cleared his throat. “I wanted to do this out here, under God and everyone, because that’s the kind of thing you deserve. And I know it took you a really long time to be comfortable with the gay thing and the Catholic thing together, so I thought maybe the big guy should be here for this. Not because I totally won that fight, even though I did. Also, you didn’t get to do the nature part when you did that seven-part Mac Day thing about the bible, and I figured we could incorporate in the outdoors and the trees and plants and shit now.”

Mac was just watching him steadily, expression unreadable, his arms crossed over his chest. But he was smiling slightly. Dennis swallowed and plunged on.

“Mac, you are my best friend in the world. I wanted you to know that because I don’t say it ever. I figured you know, but I also know you like to hear stuff out loud, so. So yeah. You’ve been my best friend since I met you when we were fourteen and you’ve been my best friend ever since. You stuck around for a lot of weird and crummy shit, and nobody in their right mind would have stuck around through some it. So that’s big for us. For the whole gang, but especially for me. We get up to a lot of shit and we put each other through the ringer but I wanna keep doing that with you, like, forever. Sometimes I don’t even know why I love you and sometimes I think I hate you more than not but I _do_ , you know? I _do_ love you. So I guess what I’m saying is…do you wanna marry me?”

He paused, then remembered that the next part was also on him. He held the mic blindly out to the side, and one of the college kids scrambled to get it before he dropped it to the ground. When his hands were free, he dug the ring box out of his pocket and held it out, closing some of the distance between them. Mac crossed a couple more yards and kissed him.

Some of the crowd started to clap. Before it really ramped up to proper applause, Mac pulled back, looked Dennis very tenderly in the eyes, and said, “Oh, Den. No.”

Dennis dropped his hands from Mac’s sides. His throat didn’t seem to feel the need to work, and it took a long time for him to choke out, _“What?”_

Mac laughed. “You didn’t think doing it in public would work, did you?”

Some of the people around them had begun to murmur amongst themselves and begin to awkwardly edge their way out of this situation. Dennis ignored them completely.

“Dennis, you can’t _shame_ me into losing,” Mac laughed. He kissed him again. Dennis just kind of stood there blankly. “Oh, but you _are_ going to pay for this, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“You just upped the ante _so hard_ , dude,” Mac said cheerfully. “Oh my god. Wow, you really escalated that shit. You are going to regret the shit out of this.”

“I don’t—”

“Now, like, are we done here?” he asked. “Did you pay these kids yet?”

“Yeah, I did it earlier.”

“Great. We’re gonna miss our movie,” said Mac. He took Dennis’s hand and led him away. People were absolutely staring. Dennis couldn’t believe he had been so successfully thwarted, and Mac was just looking up at the bright blue sky, happily humming Zeppelin as they walked.

 

Through a combination of doing a lot of ecstasy and getting into physical fights with other men at various clubs throughout Philly, Mac managed to land himself a brief cameo on public access TV on a show titled Dudes Getting Into Fistfights. It wasn’t the most brilliant show concept or name he had ever heard of, but then again, that didn’t exactly matter. What mattered was that he managed to convince Dennis to come out clubbing with him one Friday night, and they dressed up in a pair of outfits nearly as slutty as they were inappropriate for a couple of men their age, and the guy Mac had spoken to from the network flashed him a thumbs up as they got in line at one of the few places around town that he hadn’t gotten kicked out of for fighting.

Technically, he may or may not have lied that he intended to punch Dennis in the face in line over a scripted argument about cutting. But whatever got them on camera, right?

He waited until they got a little closer to the front, and then he turned to Dennis and loudly said, “Hey dude. I was fucking standing there.”

The director had the camera aimed at them, but he slid a finger across his throat and mouthed, _Don’t say fuck!_ Mac nodded a little at him and looked back at Dennis. Who was just staring at him.

“What? Are you talking to me?” he asked, genuinely confused.

“Yeah,” Mac said, getting up in his space.

But Dennis, who was used to Mac having no regard for his personal space, just blinked at him in confusion. Mac glanced over Dennis’s shoulder, making sure the camera was focused on them, and Dennis turned around too.

“What do you keep looking at?” he demanded. Then his eyes found the camera, and they widened. He whipped back around to Mac. In a low voice, he threatened, “Don’t you dare, Mac. Don’t you fucking dare—”

The director was watching them curiously. Mac figured he had maybe five more seconds before it clicked that something was wrong and the network exec came over to question them about it, and then Mac’s window of opportunity would be closed. He licked his lips, steadying himself, and then reached into his pocket.

“Mac, don’t fucking do it,” Dennis was still saying, holding his hands up in front of him and glancing behind him at the camera. “I swear to God—”

Too late. Mac dropped down to one knee and whipped out the box. The camera, which had been partway through swinging away from them, turned back to focus on their faces. Dennis looked midway between furious and close to passing out.

“Dennis, will you—”

“Get the fuck up,” Dennis hissed from between his teeth. His whole face was red with anger. “I’m going to kill you.”

He had never been this mad the other times they tried to propose to each other, so, confused, Mac climbed back up to his feet. Dennis grabbed him by the front of his shirt and hauled him close until their noses were touching.

“You goddamn lunatic _asshole_ , why would you do this here?” Dennis hissed. Still low, in the hopes that the camera wouldn’t pick it up, he added, “I can’t believe you just embarrassed us on fucking TV.”

“It wouldn’t be embarrassing if you said _yes_ ,” Mac pointed out, shoving roughly away from him. He smoothed out his shirt and looked back up at Dennis, arching a brow. “So which is it?”

“It’s a _no_ , you goddamn asshole,” Dennis said.

The camera was treacherously close to them now. Mac knew exactly what was going to happen before it did, and he just sighed as Dennis shoved the camera so hard to the side that it fell and cracked on the concrete. He stormed away, ignoring the protests from the cameraman and director and their cries about their broken equipment.

“I’m so sorry about my boyfriend,” Mac said, skirting around them too. “Proposals are a touchy subject with us right now.”

The director squinted at him. “Then why would you _do it_?”

Mac, having already hurried off to calm Dennis down, didn’t answer.

He must have taken some side streets to avoid Mac, because Mac didn’t find him until he went back to the apartment and there Dennis was, sprawled out on their couch and eating a bag of chips.

“ _There_ you are, you son of a bitch,” said Mac, kicking off his shoes. “Where the hell did you _go_?”

“Don’t you get mad at me,” Dennis said, sitting up straighter to glare. “How _dare_ you do that to me! On fucking TV!”

“Oh, it’s a fucking fistfight show,” said Mac, throwing himself down on the couch next to Dennis and reaching for the chips too. Dennis tried to bat his arms away but Mac won, and he grinned in triumph as he munched down on a handful. “They’ll never air a failed proposal. ‘Specially not a gay one.”

“It’s goddamn public access,” said Dennis. “They’ll air _anything_. Remember the dude in the adult diapers?”

Instantly, Mac could see that he wished he hadn’t said anything. Mac split into a huge smile.

“Which guy would that be?” Mac asked. “The strange one that neither of us has ever met? Or—”

“Mac, _don’t_ —”

“—or are you talking about you and Dee?”

“Go to hell,” Dennis snapped, standing up from the couch abruptly. “You can sleep out here tonight, you goddamn bastard.”

He stormed away into their room, slamming the door shut behind him. Mac laughed and settled more comfortably into the cushions. He pulled the bag of chips, now left all to himself, closer and changed the channel to something good.

In the morning, he’d call the station and ask them not to air it. He could easily get ahold of Frank’s card to bribe them if they needed a little extra incentive. For tonight, he listened to Dennis banging around just about everything in their bedroom in his endless temper, and he smiled to himself even as he curled up on their tiny couch to go to sleep.

 

“Fuck you, Mac,” Dennis said angrily, shoving his way into the bar ahead of him. “You’re the one being a stubborn animal about this.”

“Me?” he said in disbelief.

“Oh, my God!” Charlie said loudly. “Are you still fighting about the fucking proposal thing?”

They both rounded on him.

“What?” said Mac. “No, this has nothing to do with any of that. This is about rent money and getting a cheaper apartment. We _use_ both rooms, Dennis—”

“No, we don’t!” he shouted. “We sleep in the same bed, asshole! The only thing in your old room is your fucking dildo bike, you sick freak! Throw it out!”

“That bike is sweet as shit!” Mac yelled. “That is a _workout room_.”

“Throw it out and let’s buy a one-bedroom like _normal fucking adults_ ,” said Dennis. He threw his arm out to gesture vaguely at Charlie. “And while we’re at it, let’s get fucking engaged like normal adults instead of the dysfunctional psychos you’re so intent on becoming!”

“Woah, the engagement thing is _definitely_ not on me!” said Mac. “Don’t put that shit on me, dude—”

“You’re being stubborn as shit _and_ you’re being an idiot! Which is _exactly_ the same problem we’re having about the apartment!”

“I like our place,” Mac said, crossing his arms over his chest. “That’s been our home since we were twenty-two.”

“ _That’s an entire half of our life ago._ ”

“Exactly!” He threw his hands above his head. “It’s been our home for like, our whole entire life together, dude! It’s special!”

“Okay,” Dennis grumbled. He picked up his steam again to say, “but the engagement is a whole separate issue. That has nothing to do with you being sappy and emotional! You just don’t want to lose!”

“Dennis, oh my god!” He dragged his hands over his face. “ _You_ said no to _me_! I was in the middle of proposing to you _first_ and you flipped out and _said no_! This is only a fight because you made it into one! And I’m the one turning us into dysfunctional psychos?”

“I hate you,” Dennis hissed. “Christ, I fucking hate you right now—”

“Alright!” Dee shouted. They continued fighting over her. She slammed her palms down on the bar counter and said louder, “ _Alright! ALRIGHT!_ Both of you shut up!”

They finally did, both of them breathing hard.

“I wasn’t sure if they were about to kill each other or break up,” Frank muttered.

Dennis snarled at him. “Both sound extremely appealing to me.”

“Don’t say that,” Mac snapped.

They got halfway back to yelling at each other when Charlie hurried over to where they were stood by the door and put a hand on each of their shoulders.

“Guys,” he said, “ _guys_. This is, without a doubt, the absolute stupidest and most craziest thing to break up or get convicted for murder over in the history of dysfunctional relationships.”

“It is not,” Dennis said stubbornly.

“You’re literally fighting over who gets to ask the other to _marry them_ ,” Charlie said. He chuckled a little. “I mean, come on, guys. This is supposed to be a really happy moment for you.”

“I appreciate that,” said Dennis, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers, “but it comes to same fucking thing. Because neither one of us is ever going to give in to the other. Ever.”

“Alright,” said Charlie, sweeping his hand through his hair. “Alright. Let me think for a second.” They waited a few moments, sighing and shifting restlessly, until he looked back up at them. His eyes seemed brighter. “Guys, both of you give me your rings.”

“What are you—?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Just give them to me,” Charlie said through gritted teeth, holding out both hands.

Grumbling and muttering about him, they both dug them out of their pockets and put them in Charlie’s palms. He opened both to take out the rings, tossed the boxes onto a vacant table nearby, and knelt down to the floor.

“What in God’s name is he doing?” Dee asked Frank out of the corner of her mouth.

“Are they all getting married?” Frank asked. “To each other? Is that some type of gay thing I don’t know about?”

“Mac, Dennis,” said Charlie. They looked at him, and then at each other, and their stares held. “You are my two best friends and you’re completely annoying the living shit out of me. You’re driving us all up the wall. You’re breaking up the gang making us pick sides and you’re _still a couple_.”

“I’m not _making_ you do anything—”

“You _should_ all be on my side—”

“You’re also,” Charlie continued loudly over them both, “the most wildly into each other people that I’ve ever met. You take going crazy with love to ridiculous heights.”

Dennis crossed his arms, looking away. Mac mumbled something rude under his breath.

“So will you please…” Charlie closed his eyes, took a deep breath. He thrust their respective rings a little closer to them. “ _Please_ , for the love of all that is holy, marry each other? Please?”

They paused. They both looked at each other, and then at Charlie on one knee down on the floor, and then back at each other.

“I guess that works for me,” Dennis muttered at last.

“If you’re cool with it, I’m cool with it,” said Mac. “Honestly, I just want to be engaged already. Seriously.”

They looked at each for a moment longer, and then they gave jerky little nods. At the same time, they both reached out and took their rings. Charlie sighed, tipped his head back, and mouthed _Thank God_ at the ceiling before getting up and dusting off his jeans so he could go back behind the bar.

“Can I least put it on you?” Mac huffed out. A laugh was running like an undercurrent through the question, even as he glared at him.

“Yeah,” said Dennis, holding it back out for him to take. “Sure. Let me do yours, too.”

He held out his hand so Mac could slide it onto his finger. He liked the simplicity of the ring even more when he was wearing it. He dipped his hand a little in either direction, letting the light catch it. When he looked up again, Mac was watching him with a little smile.

“My turn,” Dennis said quickly, grabbing for Mac’s hand.

“Can I still do my proposal speech?” Mac asked as Dennis slipped it on. “You got to do yours in the park but I never did, and I worked really hard on it.”

Dennis released his hand and reached to cup the side of his face instead, rubbing his thumb against his cheek.

“Sure,” he said, letting his hand drop.

“Okay, well, you already have the ring, so um. Guess I can skip the getting down on one knee thing.” Mac coughed into his hand, laughing a little and fidgeting in place.

“We already got that covered. A few times,” said Dennis, grinning at him. Mac glanced at him and finally cracked a smile.

He took a deep breath.

“Dennis,” he said. “I’ve known you for twenty-eight years. And I, uh, maybe didn’t know it until a couple years ago but I think I’ve been in love with you for just about all of it. I think maybe I kinda knew a little when we were juniors. We were in a big fight at the time ‘cause I said your mom was hot. Which she was. But then you got in a fight with this kid Cooper, and I found out a lot later that it was because he said I was gay so you decked him for me. Which was sweet, ‘specially because you threw the first punch even though he was this big jock and he totally kicked your ass right afterward. And I came home from school and you knocked on my door right after and still didn’t wanna talk to me, but you just wanted to curl up on my lap and you stayed there for like, six hours, not even talking while I played Super Nintendo. I had just gotten Street Fighter II and it was totally awesome. Except you got face blood on my new jeans which was a dick move.”

Dennis was kind of huffing and rolling his eyes at this point. Mac reached out and took his hand and kept going.

“And the thing is, dude, that’s like, the whole thing for me. Even when we’re fighting — and we fight a _lot_ — you make me just wanna come home at the end of the day and lay in bed with you anyway. Not even to do sex stuff, but I mean, that too. But I just wanna be with you. Even when I’m still pissed off. Even though I didn’t know that was love until a couple years ago, I’ve always felt that way with you. And that’s the kind of thing…It’s why I’m pretty sure you’re the first person who actually loves me, like _loves_ me loves me, no matter what I do. And I don’t gotta ask for reassurance all the time, ‘cause you get me, and you get when I need to hear it.

“So that’s why I wanna marry you. ‘Cause that way…I don’t know. It’ll just be nice to keep doing this forever with you.” He dropped Dennis’s hand, and scratched at the back of his neck. “I guess I don’t really gotta ask, ‘cause you already said yes.”

“You said yes too,” Dennis said petulantly, just to establish that he definitely hadn’t lost. His voice sounded all wavering and strange, and Mac raised his eyebrows.

“Jesus, Dennis,” he murmured.

“Shit, dude,” said Charlie, leaning over the bar to get a better look at his face. “Are you crying?”

“I am not _crying_ ,” Dennis said, voice lilting up oddly again. He swiped the back of his hand across his eyes and didn’t look away from Mac once. “It’s dusty as shit in here. You need to clean up, Charlie.”

“I’m cracking open the champagne,” Frank announced.

Mac clapped his hand over the back of Dennis’s neck, steadying, swiping his thumb against his hairline in gentle little circles. Quietly, so the others couldn’t hear, he whispered, “C’mere, Den,” and leaned in to press their lips together softly.

Dennis touched his sides and leaned into him. His cheeks were undeniably a little wet where they brushed Mac’s, but he ignored it. That was one fight that Mac could put off indefinitely.

Gently as he could, Mac kissed his upper lip, then the other. Dennis shook softly against him and he kissed him harder, feeling Dennis open up against him and he pressed his tongue softly in between his teeth. Dennis’s fingers tightened on his sides and he swayed closer, his tongue suddenly insistent on Mac’s. Mac scraped his nails gently across his cheek and tilted to catch his lips again, fitting their mouths together better.

He leaned away, brushing their noses against each other, and smiled.

“I think we’re engaged now,” he whispered. “I think we’re getting married.”

Dennis laughed. He sounded breathless.

“Shut up,” he said, pulling Mac back down.

“I think you’re stuck with me forever,” Mac said giddily, crazily, their smiles pressed together.

Dennis laughed, and Mac kissed him until they were grinning too hard to keep at it and everyone else was shouting too loudly at them to stop being gross and come drink.

“It is homophobic,” Mac said, pointing a finger accusatorily at them all as he slid into a seat at the bar, “to tell gay people that their kissing is gross.”

“You dumbass,” said Dee, sliding a wine glass filled with bubbly over to him, “I’m literally a lesbian.”

“The kissing itself isn’t what makes it gross,” said Frank. “It’s just that it’s you two.”

“Whatever, baby boy,” said Dennis, throwing an arm around his shoulders and leaning into his side. “They’re just mad ‘cause we’re awesome and, like, happy. And they’re jealous.”

“Jealous that we’re getting married?”

“Jealous that we’re happy,” he explained witheringly, and he clinked the rim of his glass with Mac’s and took a sip. “Goddamn, that’s good champagne.”

“Well, I figured it was a special occasion,” Frank said, kind of mumbling it. “Anyway, congrats to you couple of assholes for finally ending that godawful fight and agreeing to be miserable for the rest of your natural lives.”

“Thank you, Frank,” said Dennis. He was smiling at Mac again.

“Oh, the fight!” said Dee. “That reminds me. Uh…well, I guess…Charlie, you kind of proposed to the both of them. So that means…”

She traced her finger in the air, confused, like she was trying to solve a difficult math problem. Charlie’s brow knit together for a moment, working something out as he stared into space.

“Does that mean I won?” he asked after a moment, perking up.

“No, ‘cause you bet on Mac,” said Frank. “And Deandra, you bet on Dennis. So, uh…”

“Frank, you were pretty close to winning ‘til we deescalated it,” said Charlie. His forehead pinched together again as he thought it over. “But then we _did_ deescalate it…uh…So…”

“Hold on a second, a bet?” said Dennis.

“What are you guys talking about?” said Mac.

“Were you betting on our engagement?” said Dennis.

The other three all looked at each other, tense. Finally, Frank was the one who relented.

“We bet on who would give in and let the other propose first,” he said at last. “Dee said you’d win and get to do it, Charlie bet on Mac.”

“Who’d you bet on?”

“I thought you’d hit each other before the fight was out,” said Frank, shrugging.

Mac swallowed more bubbly and elected not to mention that they nearly did just that, in line at the club and again just now.

“You assholes,” said Dennis. “Don’t bet on my relationship.”

“How much was the bet?” said Mac idly.

“Fifty bucks,” said Dee. “Which is a shame, ‘cause I really needed the hundred to fix my TV.”

“Oh yeah?” said Charlie. “What’d you do to it?”

“There may have been an incident involving the Godfather and a glass of wine,” said Dee. “It was really Dennis’s fault.”

“How was it my fault?” Dennis protested. “You threw the glass at my _head_ —”

“You ducked out of the way! If you had just let it hit you, my TV wouldn’t be broken,” said Dee. Dennis started to argue the point, but she said loudly over him, “It — Whatever, it doesn’t matter!”

“Hold on a second,” said Mac. “Dennis, if they didn’t win, and we worked it out no problem—”

“I think you’re forgetting a few crucial details there,” said Dee.

“No credit for the man who actually got down on one knee?” asked Charlie.

“—then I think, you know, that that makes us the winners!”

The barrage of protests that followed that statement were sudden, forceful, and loud. Dennis shouted them all to shame, waving his hands around trying to get them to be quiet.

“Mac is right! Mac is right,” he yelled. “Because none of you assholes got it right, and me and him came out on top and successfully got engaged, so—”

“It’s not the goddamn Olympics,” Frank muttered. “It doesn’t take as much work as you two bitches made it out to be.”

“—so I think that means the betting pool goes to us!” Dennis finished triumphantly.

“You _were_ betting on us,” Mac reasoned. “Besides, you should contribute to our wedding fund, ‘cause it’s gonna be an open bar anyway. So you owe us.”

“No, no! Absolutely not—”

“You didn’t shake on it—”

“You didn’t even know there _was_ a bet going on!”

This fight carried on for four more spirited hours, included Dee smashing the nearly-empty champagne bottle and threatening to cave in everybody’s skulls and Charlie shrieking at the top of his lungs no less than three separate times, and ended finally with Dee, Charlie, and Frank each slapping fifty bucks into Mac and Dennis’s upturned, victorious hands.

 

The wedding itself was small and happened, as most things did, at Paddy’s. The only people to show up, besides the gang, were Mrs. Mac, Cricket, a photographer that Frank had hired, and a pastor. Cricket because they had lured him here under the impression that he could officiate, and the pastor because Cricket had informed him that he definitely no longer had that power (but he would pretend to officiate for five bucks. He did not seem to understand why that offer wasn’t appealing to them).

Mac wore one of his “formal” polos and the duster. Dennis wore a suit, albeit an old and threadbare one, because “I’m an adult and that’s what adults wear to their own weddings, _Mac_.”

They had a big fight about who had to walk down the aisle bridal-style, an argument that got solved by Dee and Charlie (respectively) walking Dennis in from the back office and Mac in from the back alley, so that they met in the middle under the arch near the pool table and technically neither of them walked down the aisle between the chairs.

They didn’t prepare their own vows, and they couldn’t tell if it was one or both of their hands shaking when they each said _I do_. The pastor said, “You may now kiss your husband,” and Dennis’s heart was thumping harder than it ever had when he pulled Mac down and, already breathless, kissed him for the first time as husbands. Mac put his arm around Dennis’s waist when they turned to face their friends and he thought that he’d never had a more perfect evening in his whole entire life.

 

The reception was loud and _drunk_. They had tacked a small sign outside Paddy’s saying that there was a wedding inside, all patrons welcome, and the guest list had free access to the bar but they upcharged everyone else who came in. Somehow, the lure of crashing a wedding was evidently intriguing for passersby, because the bar was fuller than usual and everyone was paying too much for their drinks except for the gang and Cricket. (Mrs. Mac had already gone home, after putting her hand on Mac’s cheek for a moment. And, even though she didn’t say anything, she smiled a little at him before she left.)

Mac had his arms around Dennis’s waist, Dennis’s around his back, and he leaned his head onto his shoulder as they swayed to the music. Dennis wiped some frosting from the cake earlier off the corner of Mac’s mouth with his thumb.

“You seem sleepy,” he said. “Don’t tell me you seriously want to go home in the middle of your own goddamn wedding.”

Mac’s nose brushed his collar.

“Not in the slightest,” he murmured. “I’ve never been more awake in my whole entire life.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I’m awake as shit. Honest.”

To prove this, Mac lifted his head and smiled at him. He looked tired as hell. Before Dennis could point out the bags under his eyes, though, Mac leaned in and drew Dennis into a long, sweet kiss. Dennis steadied himself with a hand on the side of Mac’s cheek, and he rubbed his thumb there long after they pulled away.

“Have you given anymore thought to where we’re gonna go vacation after this?” Mac asked.

“It’s not a vacation, Mac. Christ.” Dennis rolled his eyes. “It’s called a _honeymoon_ , and yes. I’ve had it booked for weeks.

“I asked at the beginning of the month and you said you had no idea,” Mac said.

“Two weeks is still _weeks_ , plural,” Dennis said, irritated.

“I told you, you should have just let me plan it,” said Mac. “I’m great at that type of thing. I’m good at organizing and stuff.”

“My taste is more refined.”

“And how is exactly is a honeymoon not technically just a vacation?” Mac plowed on over him. “You go away, don’t you? Take time off and go somewhere romantic and hopefully tropical?”

“Because it’s a very specific after-wedding activity,” Dennis said. “It’s not just _anywhere_. You drop a lot of money on it. You pay for a bunch of activities that you never end up doing ‘cause you’re naked and screwing for two straight weeks.”

“Two _gay_ weeks,” Mac said blithely, and he booped him on the nose.

“Don’t ever do that again, or I will divorce you so fast that your goddamn head will spin,” Dennis threatened. He tried to sound menacing but it was difficult to pull off when he grabbed Mac’s wrist and pressed a little kiss to the offending finger.

“Divorce me then, bitch,” said Mac, pulling him closer by the waist and nuzzling back into his neck. “If you can. You’re fucking miserable without me.”

“Don’t try me,” Dennis said dryly. “I can’t afford an ex-husband. I just got rid of my ex-wife.”

“I knew it!” Mac crowed, leaning up to look him in the eye again. “I _knew_ you killed her.”

“I didn’t kill Maureen, _Christ_.” Dennis rolled his eyes. “You made a whole docuseries about this. I got cleared in under a month.”

“Or so the cops think,” Mac said, narrowing his eyes and leaning so close their foreheads were nearly touching, in what was clearly meant to be an intimidating move.

“What _you_ need to worry about,” Dennis continued, “is what I’m going to do to _your_ body after I kill _you_.”

“I’m more interested in what you’re going to do to my body _before_ you kill me,” Mac said, angling his mouth closer, and Dennis laughed softly as he again leaned to cover his lips with his own.

“I _did_ plan for the honeymoon, by the way,” Dennis murmured between more gently traded kisses. “I hope you’re all packed up, because we got a ride to catch at ten tomorrow morning.”

“Are we flying somewhere?” Mac asked, perking up immediately.

Dennis laughed softly. “No, just a bus.”

This quelled his excitement, though not by much. He still looked happily curious.

“Where to?”

“Out of state,” Denis said, jerking his eyebrows enigmatically. He leaned to kiss Mac quickly again. “Bring a jacket, but don’t plan on leaving the Air BNB too often.”

He grinned goofily. Mac laughed, happy, and hugged Dennis closer to him around the waist.

They slow danced for another twenty minutes or so, then ate some of the beef and beer that Frank was paying for, and finally Mac convinced him to sneak off in the middle of the celebration with a good old combination of whiskey and groping at his thighs and ass persistently. They sighed and touched and leaned into each other in the backroom where they stashed the kegs, and everyone had clearly noticed they were gone because when they came back out into the main room, doing up their clothes, everyone cheered loudly — Dennis figured it was half mocking, half genuine celebration for them — and raised their glasses up for a toast.

“Here here!” Charlie called.

“To a liftetime of always banging in the same hole,” Frank yelled, pounding his fist on the countertop.

“Congrats, dillholes,” Dee said, and even she seemed to be genuinely glowing for them when she lifted her glass too.

Mac pressed a giddy kiss to Dennis’s cheek and led him back into the fray by the hand.

The party lasted on through the night. By a quarter to four, Mac was leaning against the wall of one booth with his legs stretched out over Dennis’s lap where he was sitting next to him. Dennis had his arm out across the back of the booth, his fingertips just reaching far enough to lightly tickle Mac’s shoulder. The crowd had thinned out. They were open much later than they were legally supposed to be, but it was a special occasion. Nearly all of the strangers had gone, but a few regulars were scattered around in their usual seats. The rest of the gang was sitting across the booth from Mac and Dennis, and they were all drinking as steadily as they had when they started that afternoon.

“I think it’s time for us to go,” Dennis said. “We got bus tickets for ten a.m. and it’s getting real late.”

Mac was dozing against the wall. Dennis snapped his fingers in front of Mac’s face several times until he gave up, leaned in close, and shouted, “MAC!”

Mac startled awake at once, flailing and shouting frantically. Dennis got him calmed down and he pulled Mac up by his hand.

“Bye, guys,” said Dennis, waving.

The others murmured their farewells, mixing in congratulations in low voices. Dennis slung his arm around Mac’s shoulders and let him lean most of his weight on him as they went out to the Range Rover. Mac managed to fall asleep on the ten minute ride home; Dennis had to nudge him awake to get him to climb the stairs up to their apartment, and he tried to convince Dennis to help him get undressed for bed too but he wouldn’t take the bait.

It was late, but Dennis still crossed the room once they were safely in their boxers and soft cotton undershirts. Well — Dennis was. Mac generally slept shirtless, or else in something sleeveless if he really had to. Tonight he was bare-chested when Dennis ran his hands up his torso and leaned to press his lips softly to the underside of Mac’s jaw.

“Still tired?” he whispered.

“Ready to pass all the way out,” Mac breathed.

He pulled Dennis up into a kiss, messy with sleepiness but hungry nonetheless. Dennis dug his blunt nails hard into Mac’s biceps, breathing hard against his mouth. Mac’s hands swept flatly over his back, pulling him close. Dennis thumbed the sharp line of Mac’s hips and scratched lightly beneath the edge of his underwear.

Dennis slipped his palms up Mac’s sides and cupped urgently at his cheeks, fingers scrambling against his jaw. Mac pulled away, laughing breathlessly. Dennis’s eyes darted between Mac’s.

“What?” he asked, sounding winded.

Mac nudged his cheek further against Dennis’s hand on his cheek.

“Ring’s cold,” he said, still grinning.

“Sorry,” Dennis said, nonplussed. He wasn’t seeing the issue.

“No reason to be sorry,” Mac said, kissing him short and sweet again. “S’just new.”

Realization came over him, and he didn’t want to, but Dennis was smiling too.

“Get used to it,” he whispered, touching the tip of his nose to Mac’s. “It’s staying. And so am I.”

“Yeah, that happens when you marry someone.”

Mac kissed him again, tongue rolling against Dennis’s. He fisted his hand into Dennis’s hair, holding him there. Dennis laughed breathlessly again and started to edge him backwards toward their bed.

“We’re married,” Mac whispered urgently, like maybe Dennis hadn’t been made privy to that secret.

“Yeah, we are,” Dennis said, smoothing a hand through Mac’s hair and just looking at him for a short moment. “I love you.”

They half-pushed, half-pulled each other back onto the bed. Dennis tugged him up to his mouth again, kissing him soundly while Mac hitched his leg over Dennis’s and arched closer to him. Dennis rolled over onto his back and pulled Mac down with him.

 

The sun was obscene. The sun was a disgusting and cruel invention by God designed to kill Mac slowly and painfully via a growing, throbbing headache.

He hefted himself up onto his forearms, peering around the room. It was far too bright; they must have forgotten to close the blinds last night, an unforgiveable oversight in Mac’s opinion. His legs slipped out from between Dennis’s as he rolled over to pull the blankets over his head.

Dennis stirred beside him. Mac curled in closer to himself, trying to ignore the dipping mattress. This worked for about ten seconds before Dennis let out a shriek that set Mac’s headache off again and Mac was rolled off the bed and onto the carpet as the blankets he was cocooned so thoroughly inside were yanked swiftly out from under him.

“ _Fuck!_ ” Dennis said.

Mac lifted his head to peer over the side of the bed, just as Dennis picked up the alarm clock and threw it hard across the room. Mac winced as the resulting shattering made his head pound again.

“Will you shut up?” Mac snapped. “I didn’t get enough sleep and I’m so tired my goddamn _head_ hurts. Why the hell are you yelling?”

“We _missed_ it,” Dennis said.

He was sitting up, but had his knees pulled up to his chest. His eyes were darting around and Mac knew he was just looking for another thing to throw. He settled on one of their pillows, which was a small blessing. Mac didn’t intend to let him find something heavier than that. He crawled back onto the mattress and settled his hand over Dennis’s thigh.

“We missed what?” he asked.

Dennis shoved him away. “It’s half past noon! We missed our bus.”

“Oh,” said Mac, absorbing this new information. Something wilted a little in his chest. “We missed our vacation bus?”

“Our _honeymoon_ , yes,” said Dennis. “Goddamn it. Do you know how much Air BNBs in Brooklyn cost?”

Mac paused.

“You were gonna take me to Brooklyn?” he asked, awed.

Dennis whipped around to glare at him. That clearly wasn’t what Mac was supposed to have focused on, but he couldn’t help it. Going all the way to New York was...sweet. It would have been nice, anyway, just the two of them against a whole state Mac had never even been to, where nobody knew their names. Just them and no one else.

“Well, it was a little cheaper than Manhattan and only short subway ride away,” Dennis said stiffly. “Not that that matters now. _God_. A whole bus fare and a week’s worth of money on a place to stay, down the drain. This blows.”

Mac reached out to rub his back. “Well, we could go somewhere else. Somewhere closer. What did you have planned? Maybe we could do it here in Philly instead. A back-up honeymoon.”

Still looking annoyed, Dennis ticked them off on his fingers. “Museum of Sex, Rockefeller, the theatre district — we can’t do any of that shit in Philly. Also some nightclubs, which we have, but not…”

He trailed off. Mac nudged him with a shoulder.

“What?” he asked.

“Not some of the gay clubs I wanted to take you to,” Dennis sighed. He looked furious at having divulged that, as though Mac didn’t already know that Dennis cared about him. “I figured you’d like to see some…historic gay bars.”

“Really?” Mac said. “Aw, Dennis, that’s so nice. I would have loved that.”

“I know you would have!” Dennis said, tugging on his own hair. “Goddamn it. And now we can’t do any of that shit. I _told_ you we didn’t have time for that last round.”

Mac smacked him on the thigh.

“That was the best one,” he said. “Come on, Den. We still have a week off! We already told the gang we were going away.”

“Yeah, but we’re _not_ going away,” said Dennis petulantly. His jaw was still set and it was probably a close thing that he hadn’t thrown anything else yet.

“They don’t know that,” Mac said. He slid a little further down the bed, slinging his arm around Dennis’s waist and pulling him down to his back with him. Dennis grumbled but let him tug him around. He even shifted a little closer to Mac’s side, although he’d never admit it and would probably claim he was just getting comfortable. “We could still stay away for a week…Not go into the bar at all. Still don’t have to leave the bed. Just take our vacation a little closer to home.”

“Our _honeymoon_ ,” Dennis grumbled, turning into him and kissing his shoulder. “Okay. Do we have enough food and booze to last us the week?”

“We’ll make a grocery trip later,” Mac said around a yawn. He was already drifting back closer to sleep, one arm curled around Dennis’s back, palm flat between his shoulder blades and coaxing Dennis to wind an arm around him too. “Just run down to the corner store for some reheatable shit and champagne. We’ll be back before anyone sees us.”

“That sounds good to me,” Dennis mumbled into his side. “We’ve just gotta make sure we don’t get caught.”

“We won’t,” Mac promised.

 

They got caught three days later, when they finally got sick of fucking themselves to sleep and went for a walk that Dennis swore they could pull off without seeing anyone they knew. They knew very few people, so it felt like a safe bet. Charlie saw them when he was climbing out of a sewer grate six blocks from the bar.

“What the hell!” he said, pointing accusatorily at them with one hand as he used the other to try and pull himself out of the manhole. “You guys are supposed to be on honeymoon, not just skipping work!”

“I’m not taking shit from a guy covered in sewer sludge and piss!” Mac yelled.

“You smell like shit,” Dennis said, pinching his nose. He was already tugging Mac away by the hand. “Charlie, don’t tell anyone that we’re still here in the city.”

Charlie finally got himself out of the hole. He crossed his arms.

“What will you give me for it?” he asked, turning his nose up conspiratorially.

They looked at each other, contemplating.

“We’ll give you ten bucks,” Mac said.

“Deal,” Charlie said, reaching his hand out to shake on it. They did not want to touch him and both backed away, mumbling vague promises.

Charlie told everyone almost immediately and the rest of their week was plagued by nonstop phone calls and voicemails requesting none too kindly that they come in to work. It got to the point where they had to turn off their phones.

“I hate our friends,” Dennis groaned above Mac, both of them slumped on the couch on Friday night watching a Stephen King flick on one of the higher channels. “Can we stay on honeymoon forever? Never go back to real life?”

They miraculously hadn’t gotten sick of each other all week, cooped up together with no one else around. Newlywed fever was a hell of a drug. Mac’s fingers tapped against Dennis’s bare chest, breath ghosting over his neck. He was lying on his stomach between Dennis’s legs, cheek pressed to his chest. Dennis’s hand brushed through his hair. He hadn’t gelled it down all week, too busy stuck in a loop of banging and showering and sleeping.

“We can do it again,” Mac said.

“We just did it,” Dennis sighed, “I need more time than—”

“No!” Mac swatted at his ribs. “I meant we didn’t get a real vacation this time, so we should go on, like, a real honeymoon sometime. We can actually make it out of the state this time. We can even maybe make it out of the country!”

“That would be cool,” said Dennis, biting his cheek as he thought it over. Sounding solemn, he said, “Yeah, I’m into that. Sometime soon, though. I want to go away with you _soon_.”

Mac leaned up to kiss him deeply.

“Whatever you want,” he said. “We still have a couple more days before this is all over, though. Let’s just enjoy it.”

“That’s the beauty of this whole thing, Mac.” He reached to take Mac’s hand where it was tracing light patterns across Dennis’s ribs, and he squeezed. Mac tilted his face to look up at him. “We can do this kind of thing whenever we want. Just take a couple days off any time the mood strikes.”

“Really?”

“Sure,” Dennis said with a shrug. “We’re just racking up anniversaries now that we’re married. First kiss, first date, when we met, anniversary of our actual wedding, anniversary of the honeymoon ending. You name it!”

“You’re just using me for vacation time,” Mac accused, pinching his side, but they were both laughing when Dennis ducked down and kissed him softly.

Mac held him close for a moment when he tried to pull away. Dennis kissed him again.

“Say it again,” Mac whispered.

Dennis didn’t have to ask. He squeezed Mac around the middle and ghosted, “Now that we’re _married_ ,” against his lips. Mac smoothed a hand across his cheek and kissed him again.

“I love you.”

“Yeah, Mac,” Dennis murmured. “I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> i'm [lesbianfreyja](http://lesbianfreyja.tumblr.com/post/178085765825) on tumblr
> 
> some good ol' macdennis engagement tunes to do ya right:  
> -chateau lobby #4 (in c for two virgins) by father john misty  
> -stay stay stay by taylor swift  
> -first day of my life by bright eyes
> 
> xoxoxo


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